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Was Bradley Manning — the U.S. soldier who leaked troves of documents to WikiLeaks — a naïve, well-intentioned loner tormented by his time in Iraq? Or a glory hound intent on betraying his country?

A courtroom sketch depicts Private First Class Bradley Manning, left, and his attorney David Coombs during the first day of Manning's trial at Fort Meade, Md., on Monday. Manning is accused of providing more than 700,000 secret documents to the WikiLeaks website. (William Hennessy / REUTERS)

WASHINGTON—A naïve, well-intentioned loner tormented by his time in Iraq, only looking to do something that would bring the killing there to an end?

Or a glory hound intent on betraying both his uniform and his country? One who wilfully exploited the intersection of “arrogance and access,” ultimately handing a trove of American secrets to the enemy?

The world has had 1,100 days to take sides on U.S. Private First Class Bradley Manning, the data-dumper behind the worst security breach in American history. He is accused of handing more than 700,000 U.S. government and military videos, documents and diplomatic cables to WikiLeaks, which spread them widely online.

But as the curtain rose on his long-awaited trial Monday at Fort Meade, Md., the competing portraits of Manning, hero or traitor, were on vivid display in opening statements seeking to define the defendant.

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The court martial hearing, expected to last 12 weeks, opened with military prosecutor Capt. Joe Morrow’s hour-long outline of the U.S. government case, alleging that Manning, 25, not only “craved” notoriety but also worked closely with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to steal classified documents that would later pique the interest of Osama bin Laden.

“This is a case about a soldier who systematically harvested documents from classified databases and then dumped that information on to the Internet into the hands of the enemy,” Morrow said.

Defence lawyer David Coombs countered that Manning was “young, naïve and good intentioned” upon arrival in Iraq, where he was stationed as an intelligence analyst.

But Manning grew disillusioned in late 2009 in the wake of an attack that caused Iraqi casualties without costing American lives. While his fellow soldiers celebrated the outcome, Manning instead began collecting data he thought would “make the world a better place,” said Coombs.

“He believed this information showed how we value human life,” Coombs said. “He was troubled by that. He believed that if the American public saw it, they, too, would be troubled.”

Manning, wearing a dress uniform, declined trial by jury, leaving the outcome of his court martial in the hands of a single military judge. Having already pleaded guilty to 10 of the 22 charges he faced, few expect he will spend less than two decades in prison.

But in detailing its intent to press forward on the most serious count of aiding the enemies of the United States, Manning could instead face life behind bars.

With a worldwide base of fans and critics watching closely on social media — and Assange a virtual prisoner in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, where he has taken refuge to avoid extradition — Manning’s trial comes as the Obama administration intensifies its war on whistleblowers.

In a sign of deepening concerns over media access, more than 20 news organizations joined forces Monday calling for two additional media passes to be issued to enable crowd-funded stenographers to help expose the Manning proceedings for public consumption.

Fox News, the New Yorker, the Los Angeles Times and National Public Radio are among the signatories urging that stenographers be allowed to create public transcripts, warning that otherwise “the public, which is closely watching this case, will be less able to understand the process and decisions made by the court.”

The military judge, Col. Denise Lind, later ruled in favour of the request to allow a professional stenographer. But it remained unclear whether Fort Meade’s media team would follow through with the request for additional media passes, according to an updated statement from the Freedom of the Press Foundation.

Some 280 news organizations were left out in the cold last week, denied press credentials to cover the Manning trial. And among those 70 journalists allowed to watch the proceedings on a live video feed at a media holding area at Fort Meade, frustrations on Monday were immediately evident.

Complaints on Twitter from those inside ranged from contempt for the “low resolution” courtroom stream to the military’s spotty Internet service. Reporters, banned from activating their own mobile data hot spots, were dependent on Fort Meade for online access.

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